{"id":29861,"date":"2013-03-27T02:22:45","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T02:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=29861"},"modified":"2013-03-27T02:22:45","modified_gmt":"2013-03-27T02:22:45","slug":"race-and-the-census-the-negro-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=29861","title":{"rendered":"Race and the Census: The &#8220;Negro&#8221; Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewsocialtrends.org\/2010\/01\/21\/race-and-the-census-the-%E2%80%9Cnegro%E2%80%9D-controversy\/\" target=\"_blank\">Race and the Census: The &#8220;Negro&#8221; Controversy<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pew Research: Social &amp; Demographic Trends<\/a><br \/>\nPew Research Center<br \/>\n2010-01-21<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewsocialtrends.org\/author\/dcohn\/\" target=\"_blank\">D\u2019Vera Cohn<\/a><\/strong>, Senior Writer<\/p>\n<p>The topic of racial identification on census forms has a long, fascinating history, which has generated fresh debate as the 2010 Census begins. Why, some ask, does the form include the word \u201cNegro,\u201d along with \u201cblack\u201d and \u201cAfrican American,\u201d among the options that Americans can choose for their self-identification? Isn\u2019t that term out of date?<\/p>\n<p>As you can see from the review that follows here, racial terms have come in and out of favor from one decade to the next. There was a similar debate about \u201cNegro\u201d in the 2000 Census, as there have been about other race terms in previous census years.<\/p>\n<p>Before 1960, <strong>census-takers filled out the enumeration forms and chose the category for each American they counted.<\/strong> They used a detailed set of instructions from the government, key points of which are listed below. The 1960 Census was a transitional year in which census-takers chose the race for some Americans, and others self-identified from a list of categories.\u00a0 From 1970 to 1990, most Americans filled out their own forms and checked off a race category for themselves. Starting in 2000, they could choose more than one.<\/p>\n<p>When the census began in 1790, the racial categories for the household population were \u201cfree white\u201d persons, other \u201cfree persons\u201d by color, and \u201cslaves.\u201d Census-takers did not use standard forms in the early censuses.<\/p>\n<p>For 1850-1880, the codes for enumerators were generally white (W), black (B) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=451\" target=\"_blank\">mulatto<\/a> (M). Beginning in 1850, the data item was labeled \u201ccolor.\u201d In 1870, Chinese (C) and Indian (I) were added. In 1880, the data item was not labeled; it was \u201cwhether this person is\u2026\u201d In 1890, \u201cJapanese,\u201d \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=1144\" target=\"_blank\">quadroon<\/a>\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=1146\" target=\"_blank\">octoroon<\/a>\u201d were added&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewsocialtrends.org\/2010\/01\/21\/race-and-the-census-the-%E2%80%9Cnegro%E2%80%9D-controversy\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Race and the Census: The &#8220;Negro&#8221; Controversy Pew Research: Social &amp; Demographic Trends Pew Research Center 2010-01-21 D\u2019Vera Cohn, Senior Writer The topic of racial identification on census forms has a long, fascinating history, which has generated fresh debate as the 2010 Census begins. Why, some ask, does the form include the word \u201cNegro,\u201d along [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,33,459,8,20],"tags":[14187,3122,14188],"class_list":["post-29861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-census","category-history","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-dvera-cohn","tag-pew-research-center","tag-pew-research-social-demographic-trends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}